Transforming Afinia: How a Modern Data Warehouse Enhanced Operational Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Afinia is an electricity service provider in Colombia and a subsidiary of Grupo EPM, the largest energy company in Colombia. As a relatively new company operating in a complex sector, Afinia recognized the need for strategic innovation to scale and remain competitive, but it lacked the technical expertise to get started. The company struggled to leverage business intelligence data to decipher complex patterns, predict market trends, optimize resource allocation, and foster sustainable growth.

Igerencia implemented a data warehouse architecture for Afinia that promotes structured data management and reporting, creating a cohesive flow of business intelligence. This architecture leverages distributed and parallel processing technologies, such as cloud storage systems, columnar databases, and massive processing tools. It also employs real-time data integration techniques for continuous analysis of updated information.

Results:

• Visualization platform in Power BI.
• Architecture prioritizing data security and privacy, incorporating encryption, access control, and auditing mechanisms.
• Improved customer satisfaction and optimized resource allocation.
• Significant cost reductions.

Technologies:

• Informatica PowerCenter
• Microsoft PowerBI
• IBM InfoSphere DataStage

FULL CASE STUDY

Title: Transforming Afinia: How a Modern Data Warehouse Boosted Operational Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

Client: Afinia, a subsidiary of Grupo EPM.

Sector: Utilities, Public Services

Technology: Informatica PowerCenter, Microsoft PowerBI, IBM InfoSphere DataStage.

A New Energy Company in Colombia Seeks to Harness Business Intelligence

Afinia is a Colombian electricity service provider and a subsidiary of Grupo EPM, the largest energy company in Colombia. Afinia has around 1,050 employees and serves over 6 million residents across five departments in Colombia, including Bolívar, Córdoba, Sucre, Cesar, and 11 municipalities in southern Magdalena.

As a relatively new company operating in a complex sector, Afinia recognized the need for strategic innovation to scale and remain competitive, but it lacked the technical expertise to get started. The company struggled to leverage business intelligence data to decipher complex patterns, predict market trends, optimize resource allocation, and foster sustainable growth. Afinia was inefficiently gathering large amounts of data from multiple, unintegrated sources, including third-party and legacy systems, but the company lacked defined practices around data quality, governance, security, or utilization.

For the executive team, in particular, the lack of data visualization tools and the inability to turn data into actionable information hindered the company’s ability to scale and plan for the future. Afinia needed professional help to build a strong data flow and begin harnessing the power of business intelligence for data-driven decision-making, efficiency improvements, and overall growth.

The Experienced Data Engineering Firm, Igerencia, Takes on the Challenge of Building a Modern Data Warehouse Architecture

Igerencia stood out as the ideal partner for Afinia, with the designation of Microsoft Certified Partner and extensive experience in designing and developing business intelligence dashboards, data warehouses, and Azure cloud architectures. After gaining a comprehensive understanding of Afinia’s data needs, Igerencia implemented a data warehouse architecture that promotes structured data management and reporting, creating a cohesive flow of business intelligence.

This architecture uses distributed and parallel processing technologies, such as cloud storage systems, columnar databases, and massive processing tools. It also employs real-time data integration techniques to continuously analyze updated information.

Moving away from traditional extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) methods, this modern data warehouse architecture fosters the use of semantic data models and data virtualization for agile data exploration without the need to replicate in multiple locations.

The architecture also prioritizes data security and privacy, incorporating encryption, access control, and auditing mechanisms to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of the stored information.

Optimizing Data Complexities and Maximizing Actionable Insights with Advanced Integration Platforms

The complete data warehouse architecture was built using a phased approach. The project’s first phase focused on data ingestion and transformation, achieving data integration, and the second phase focused on metric parameterization and data visualization through dashboards. Igerencia emphasized data integration, data quality, data governance, and data visualization:

Data Integration: Igerencia first implemented a data integration platform using Informatica’s PowerCenter to centralize Afinia’s data from various sources, including operational systems, legacy systems, and third-party data sources. The data integration platform was customized to Afinia’s specific needs using specialized connections and adapters, as well as implementing transformations and business rules to ensure the consistency and quality of integrated data. Through the new platform, Afinia automated manual processes and created a centralized, updated database.

Data Quality: To ensure data quality, Igerencia implemented a data quality framework using IBM InfoSphere DataStage. The framework provides guidelines, processes, controls, and standards to manage and improve data quality throughout the data lifecycle, from capture to storage and analysis. InfoSphere DataStage manages data cleansing, standardization, and enrichment tasks, resulting in a significant improvement in the quality and reliability of the information used for decision-making.

Data Governance: Data governance refers to the set of policies and procedures established to ensure the availability, integrity, confidentiality, and proper use of data in an organization. Igerencia created a comprehensive governance framework using IBM InfoSphere DataStage, which included defining clear roles and responsibilities for those involved in data management, creating policies and standards to ensure data quality and consistency, and implementing control and monitoring mechanisms to ensure compliance with the new policies. Additionally, the data governance framework featured version control and change management processes, facilitating data updates and tracking over time. Security and access control mechanisms were also established to ensure that only authorized personnel had access to the organization's sensitive data.

Data Visualization: The final piece of the puzzle, Igerencia designed and built a visualization platform in Power BI that allows Afinia to customize dashboards according to specific requirements. With Microsoft’s leading visualization platform, users can intuitively explore and analyze data, leading to more impactful insights that can drive informed strategic decisions.

Unlocking Service Improvements, Cost Efficiencies, and Increased Customer Satisfaction with Business Intelligence

By integrating a complete data warehouse architecture, Igerencia helped Afinia unlock new possibilities across all operations, leading to impressive key results. From resource allocation and service improvement to customer satisfaction and cost reduction, Afinia’s strategic shift toward data-driven insights has produced tangible, measurable progress, including:

Improved Resource Allocation: With a complete, clear view of its data, Afinia can identify areas for improvement, optimize processes, and allocate resources more efficiently, increasing overall profitability.

Service Improvement: Reliable, up-to-date data allows Afinia to identify areas that need refinement in both electricity services and customer service. As a result, they can offer more optimized energy solutions.

Customer Satisfaction: The ability to make data-driven decisions and improve services directly enhances customer satisfaction. By offering more reliable, efficient, and personalized services, Afinia can begin to exceed customer expectations. This not only strengthens relationships with existing customers but also attracts new ones.

Cost Reduction: A holistic view of data and optimized resource use enables Afinia to minimize unnecessary expenses, thus improving operational profitability. This cost reduction contributes to more robust financial management and generates greater benefits for the organization.

Testimonials

"The data governance framework included version control and change management processes, which facilitated the updating and tracking of data over time."

"With Microsoft’s leading visualization platform, users can intuitively explore and analyze data, leading to more impactful insights that can drive informed strategic decisions."

"By integrating a complete data warehouse architecture, Igerencia helped us unlock new possibilities across all our operations, leading to impressive key results."

"With a full and clear view of our data, we can identify areas for improvement, optimize processes, and allocate resources more efficiently, boosting overall profitability."